AUTO (Anime Universe Truthkeeping Association)
by OPFan37
Summary: In an AU, the online company AUTO is a mysterious force that no-one knows about...except the people who work for it! Their job is to travel into the cybernetic fingerprints of anime, the anime universe itself, and eliminate the entities known as 'Viruses' which seek to destroy those worlds. SYOC Story! (Idea/Concept Premise)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: AUTO

Let me tell you a few things about myself.

Positives: I am a generally happy, kind and approachable person with plenty of politeness, I am able to work effectively in groups and with others, I am told to be very creative and imaginative, I have gotten high scores in almost all of my exams and I'm generally just a goody-goody two shoes.

Negatives: I'm a pervert, I'm also a compulsive liar, I'm generally lazy and unmotivated, I have a tendency to act weird for no apparent reason, I have a lot of suppressed rage, I am generally disinterested with anything that doesn't appeal to me, I have a 'get free stuff' attitude that will lead me to turn up to your birthday party and eat half of the provided lunch before taking the rest home in a bag AND...I don't like Naruto. Just...doesn't appeal to me really.

And that's all the background you're gonna get, and I'm ever gonna allow. How's THAT for brilliant exposition?

Hi. My name is Evan Cole. I guess I'm the protagonist/narrator of this story of mine...'cause y'know...I'm the one writing it. I'm a guy, I'm 18, pale skin (from obvious lack of sunlight) blue eyes and neatly combed dark brown hair. That's all you need to know.

Listen, I'm not asking you to believe what I'm about to tell you, but it's all true...where I come from at least. Apparently this is being sent across dimensions as a testiment to the scientific advancements and achievements our world has created. So, uh...you guys reading this...do you have two heads or something like that? Our world just has humans. You guys should be humans as well...right? Or are you all hippos or something like that? And now I just sound weird, don't I?

Okay, I just got an email back, no matter what, all you readers should be normal, so I'm gonna cut the crap now, because I'm gonna tell you all my story, about the day that changed my life, and how that led me on an insane path that made me who I am right now. Deep stuff, I know.

So then, I'm gonna be changing this to story mode in 3...2...1...action!

* * *

It happened on the first day of the summer holidays, that miraculous moment when you finally reach the glorious expanse of weeks that consisted of nothing but freedom/part time jobs.

I myself headed straight home, waving goodbye and good luck to my friends. I don't think I will tell you the details of where I live, because that would be weird. I will say though, that I tossed my bag aside, hung my coat up and flopped onto my bed with a great big sigh of relief as I felt all the expectations and stress melt away in the comforting feeling of laziness.

Deciding to treat myself, and also just feeling like it because, again, summer holiday, I flipped on the TV, only to find that my parents had left it on the news channel. I went to change it, but the subject matter instantly held my attention and prevented me from clicking one button.

"In other news, the online program AUTO has continued to expand to various new employees." The newswoman said as the logo appeared beside her. It was basically the word 'AUTO' in streamlined blue with three diagonal rings around the word, with a faint green background glow. "Still no information has been leaked on the surprisingly large and popular groups work or research, and there has apparently been no found link between the candidates the program has offered its jobs too. When AUTO workers were questioned on the subject, the response was always that they got invited to join through a confidential email which deleted itself soon after, and any traces have been unable to be discerned by even the top computer technicians."

I nodded to myself at the information, which was really just on repeat nowadays. AUTO was a big name in today's society, but the thing was, nobody knew just what it did! But it seemed to be working, as everybody who had been hired seemed to gain a good paycheck, all digitally registered into bank accounts no less! People had been trying to trace their sources for ages, but with no luck, and the group as a whole were really a big mystery, it was even considered at one point that they were a terrorist group!

"Despite this, all top executive businesses dealing with technological advancements in their services support AUTO, and back up its work, preventing any case courts against the online group." Yeah, THAT was the kicker. Literally all the big technological companies in the world were in business with AUTO, and were advancing extremely rapidly thanks to it! I figured at the time that they hired young prodigy's in order to work for these groups, and then they pay them in return.

Having heard all this before, I switched off the screen and retired to my room, dumping myself in front of my laptop and flipping it up before swiftly logging in, quickly opening up Google over my Monster Musume background, got in trouble for that a while ago.

Before you start jumping to any conclusions, no, I don't watch hardcore hentai, none of that tentacle stuff, just some ecchi and school romances. D-Frag, anybody? And no, I'm not a weeaboo, OTAKU, thank you, there's a difference. And yes, I watch a variety thank you very much. Gintama, Keroro Gunso, K-ON, Deadman Wonderland, Tokyo Mew-Mew.

...You didn't read that last one.

Anyway, I was just checking my emails, boring, before watching the latest episodes on Crunchyroll (Will they give me money if I advertise this to another dimension?...No? Crud.), things were a bit slow on the big anime updates, you know the ones I mean, but hey, Dimension W seemed to be doing well, and some smaller anime were picking up the pace.

Okay, okay, I'm rambling. It was about an hour after I finished watching that I received an email notification. Living in the 21st century I clicked on it to see what it was, only to fined the AUTO logo covering my entire screen. Naturally, I thought it was just another pointless news update, so I scrolled down to read, I couldn't be further from the truth.

 _Dear Mr. Cole_

 _We at AUTO are very pleased with your work ethic and schedule, and we would like to offer you an unconditional role in AUTO. If you accept, further details will be issued to you, along with all descriptions and rules, along with rate of payment and training. If you are interested, please select the 'I Accept' button, or otherwise, the 'I Decline' button. We look forward to your answer._

 _Note: This email is confidential and will be deleted after use. Please do not disclose this information to anybody._

So, that was that. For a moment I just stared at the screen in dumb thoughtless shock. AUTO, one of the biggest, most mysterious, most controversial companies ever, just sent me an email offering an unconditional place. Really? Me? I thought for a moment there must've been some mistake, a different Mr. Cole, anything. There seriously wasn't anything discernable about me.

I looked at the monitor for what felt like ages, what exactly was I supposed to do? This was a once in a lifetime opportunity here! Hell, this was probably the first time ever that term applied to myself!

Thinking to myself 'Just do it!' I clicked on accept. In hindsight, I probably should have debated the positives and negatives with myself a bit more, but that might have stopped what happened next, which was another email.

 _Thank you for accepting. Please wait for a moment._

So I folded my arms and stared at the screen for something to happen, leaning in closer and closer FLASH! A sudden ray of light shocked my vision, and I clutched my eyelids as I was temporarily blinded. Then I felt my chair seemingly fall out from underneath me, and I fell shortly before landing on my back and crying out from the sudden impact.

In my confusion, I couldn't do anything but lay on the floor and squeeze my eyes tighter to block out the light, using my hand to try and find any leverage, only for it to touch the cold metal surface of the floor. As a side note, my floor is not metal.

Beginning to panic, I forced myself to my feet and blinked my eyes furiously to try and get them to work, until my vision finally started to blur into a sort of sense. I was in a room, not my room, not even a room, a cylinder. I was inside a cylinder, mostly white, but it had little green lights flickering around its curved walls. Goddamnit, everything hurt...look up, there's a little black screen with a camera lense inside it above me. I'm being watched, brilliant. I start to think that maybe I'd been kidnapped by a secret organisation...wait...what if AUTO were secretly slave-traders!? Okay, no, that's stupid, but that didn't excuse the fact that I was most likely in trouble.

Look down now, and what the hell was I wearing!? These certainly weren't my normal clothes! I was wearing some kind of black suit, it wasn't skin-tight, but it covered my whole body, including my arms and my palms, but had little holes in the ends so my fingers could poke out, whilst it also stretched down to my legs, forming flat-soled rounded shoes. Actually, I wore an outfit over this suit, consisting of a black zipped-up jacket with a hood and baggy arms, along with some black trousers, both seemed to be made out of a...rubbery material, whilst the suit was thin. Unzipping the jecket, I discovered a little circle-shaped silver index in the chest of the suit, with white lines running from it, forming streaking patterns across the chest.

Yeah, waking up in a cylinder wearing all black is not a good sign.

"Evan Cole?" I jumped at the voice and looked around for the source, it sounded robotic, but in the sense that someone was speaking into a voice modulator. "Evan Cole?" I looked up to see the camera adjusting itself. "Evan Cole, can you hear me? Can you hear me, Evan Cole?"

"...Yes." I replied, not knowing what else to do.

"Good. Please do not be alarmed, we do not aim to harm you." Well, THAT'S very reassuring Mr. Robot Voice. "Please wait a moment."

Guess that was that. I plodded around the cylinder, pulled on the components of this outfit which had been forced upon me and leaned against the wall with folded arms, tapping my foot against the floor.

Until finally, a door opened up in front of me, leading to an electric blue square room, with a jet black table, two chairs, and a door on the other end. "Please take a seat." The voice said.

Cautiously, I walked into the room and lowered myself into one of the chairs, looking around as I did. The blue walls seemed to have white lines darting across them every so often, and there was really nothing else discernible about it, not even any evidence of one of those one-way screens.

I heard the door opened, and I looked forward to see another human being walk in. He wore the same suit as I did, though his jacket was more stretched out, had pockets on the side, and was white to match his trousers, like a lab coat. He had pale skin, blonde hair that spiked up erratically whilst sweeping backwards, and sharp green eyes framed by black rectangular glasses.

"Greetings Mr. Evan Cole." He said as he sat down in the opposite chair, offering a friendly smile along with his hand. "How do you do? I'm George Law, Manager Number 3 of AUTO."

"Nice to meet you..." I practically whispered, shaking his hand rather pathetically.

"I understand that you probably have a lot of questions..." He said.

"A few, yeah..." I nodded.

"But let me first tell you that this is an incredibly unique and profitable offer, in more ways then one." George reassured me. "Okay, now questions."

"Everything." I stated plainly, still in some shock, waving my arms to gesture to everything. "Just...wh-where am I?"

"This is AUTO's place of work. You were brought here by incredibly advanced pixelation transportation technology." George told me.

"Alright...what am I wearing?"

"Standard procedure work clothes whilst around the main base, everybody wears it, but it can be customised to suit your needs. As for how you got it, it was swapped in with your other clothes during transfer, and please do not worry, your original garments are perfectly fine."

"...That's good." I said, finally managing to gain some composure. "So...is this why AUTO is so secretive?"

"Ah, now I have an excuse to talk about our work." George smiled giddily. "Er, these will answer most of your questions, so, do you mind?"

"Not at all." I figured.

"Excellent! Let me just say Evan that you will have to be a bit open-minded about this."

"I think I have plenty of evidence so far." I said.

"Then tell me, have you ever heard of cyberspace?"

"Yeah, the technology of alternate realities and existences with computers, right?"

"Good man. Because that ties strongly into us as a company." He leaned back in his chair and spread his arms out. "Our base, as it were, and all of our work, is located within cyberspace, a pocket of living, breathing, advanced cybertech. The travelling lights you can see around us are actually electrical currents travelling between computers." I simply had to look anywhere other then at him for that to be true.

"Soooo...you've mastered all of this advanced technology, is that why your backed by all the major companies?" I asked.

"Indeed! Those in our management, business, and economy sections, offer up the most advanced technological defences against viruses, as well as the best running systems, all for use by the worlds banks and top companies. As a result, we are quite profitable." He then leaned on the table with a knowing grin. "But you see, Evan, that is only a small part of what we do."

'Seriously!?' I thought. 'These guys make millions of pounds, dollars, yen, whatever, and that's only from a fraction of what they do!?'

"H-Hold on!" I stopped him. "I think you've got the wrong guy! I don't know anything about technology on this level! I can't help you with stuff like this!"

"But, Evan, we are not offering you a place like that." George said. "We're offering you a place in our main line of work."

"Main line?" I echoed.

He looked at me with clasped hands. "Tell me, Evan, are you an otaku?"

...What?

After spouting all of this incredible stuff, he straight up asks me how much of an anime fanatic I am!? What the hell!?

"It's not a trick question." George helped.

"W-Well, I..." I glanced around nervously, I'd never actually talked about this stuff. "I own a few manga's, have some merchandise, watch a few episodes..."

"More then a few." George whipped out a white tablet and looked at it. "2 hours on Crunchyroll a day, 5 on weekends, multiple purchases of goods, rows of manga's and a very fetching laptop background."

My face burned hotter then the sun at the reveal of what I thought was personal information. "Wh-What does any of that have to do with why you emailed me!?"

"It means everything." George said, putting away the tablet. "You see, we deal with anime much more deeply then you think. In fact, anime is our main line of work."

"Anime is? Really?" This just sounded weird. AUTO, the big mysterious company, had a main line of work involving anime?

"Indeed." George nodded. "AUTO is actually an acronym. It stands for Anime Universe Truthkeeping Organisation."

I stared at him in slack-jawed bafflement. "What...does that mean?"

"It means..." He stood up out of his chair. "That AUTO deals with the threat posed to anime and our existence outside of it, by accessing the cyberspacial worlds created by them and eliminating all known threats."

"...Huh!?" I cried in confusion.

"Perhaps I should explain in more detail." He walked over to the door and grabbed the handle. "Let's have a little walk and talk to explain things further."

I just sat there for a few minutes, not really knowing what to do. For some reason, probably out of curiosity, I stood up, and followed him out of the room, as he closed the door shut behind us.

 **NOTE: Remake!**

 **Okay, I'm gonna be honest here. This is an idea I've had since I was, like, 10. And for some reason I thought of it again and decided 'Eh, why not? Some people might like the idea' and wrote this.**

 **Basically the premise is that the organisation, AUTO as I have named it, recruit otaku's to send into anime worlds created through their cybernetic fingerprints as they were, and eliminate the threat of mysterious enemies known as 'Viruses' which seek to destroy the anime world.**

 **You can tell this idea was thought up by a 10 year old.**

 **But I myself think this concept is really really cool. And hey! If you guys like it too, then by all means make your own AUTO-like stories! I think mainly this story is to inspire, and to see what you guys think of it!**

 **And yes! I've made this a SYOC! I actually want to see how you guys reading would create a character to suit this concept, and, who knows, if enough people seem interested and I get enough OC's, I might even continue this story!**

 **So, without further ado, here's the OC Form!**

* * *

Name: First and last, please

Gender:

Age:

Appearance (Original): This is how they look whilst not working for AUTO, that means normal hair, eye colour, skin colour, everything like that.

Appearance (AUTO): This is how they look whilst working for AUTO. Here you can go wild since its free customization. You can change your characters hair colour/style, eye colour, skin colour, body proportions, to whatever they like, within reason of course.

Outfit: Every AUTO worker wears the standard black suit, but the jacket and trousers can be customised however you want!

P-Colour: This is your characters main colour, which becomes the main colour of their weapons and attacks.

Weapon: This is what your character uses to fight Viruses. They all originate as AUTO-Packs which fit into the indentation on the front of their suits. They can morph into whatever you can think of, but with limits. The weapons start off weak and only gain stronger through experience, like leveling up, and they can only have three basic forms. It can either be offensive or defensive based, but it has to be unique! I don't want simple swords and shields, think about how you can turn a fan into a fighting machine!...Or something!

Personality: To make a truly great OC, this section must have AT LEAST five sentences. What are their fears? What do they love/hate? How do they react in certain situations?

Anime: Now THIS is the good section, which is divided into three parts. NOTE: Your choices don't have to be action/adventure, they can be slice of life, romance, or anything similar. Lucky Star, anyone?

Favourite Anime: This part consists of the main anime your character watches, the rule here is that the anime in question must have over 30 episodes to its name, and you can only have 3.

1.

2.

3.

Watched Anime: This is anime that your character still thoroughly enjoys. There are no limitations to the anime listed here, being of any genre or length, only that you can only list 5.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Guilty Pleasure Anime: You know exactly what this section means. The limitation is 3.

1.

2.

3.

Romance: Do you want your character to fall in love? And this applies to either another AUTO worker or a seperate character in an anime. NO MAIN ANIME CHARACTER ROMANCES!

Other: Anything I've missed?

 **As an example, I've listed some features of Evan below:**

Name: Evan Cole

Gender: Male

Age: 18

P-Colour: Electric Green

Weapon: Secret

 **In any case, thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this idea!**

 **Also, NO BOKU NO PICO!**


	2. Chapter 2

**C** hapter 2: The Basics 

Well, shit. I don't really know what I was expecting, but uh...this was it.

Wherever I looked it was the same scenery, in the sense that we seemed to be in a big sphere, with sky blue colouring, and the same electric lights flickering around it, but it appeared to be made up of little squares forming around into the sphere shape. Looking back, we appeared to have walked out of a hexagonal built room, with several circular points on the end which I knew had to be the pods, one of which I appeared in. In order to make that easier for those of you who can't picture that properly, from above, it looks like a crown. And throwing my head to the left and right, I saw multiple looks-like-a-crown-from-above-rooms lined up alongside each other in a curve.

Directing my attention to the floor, I saw that the ground I was walking on seemed to be a mix of rubber and solid...how do I put this? You know those blocks that the Boos in Super Mario Sunshine turn into when you spray them?...No?...It was still like those. And every time I took a step, a white ripple resounded out along the path until it faded away. The floor also seemed to be...floating, in the center of the sphere. The end of the path seemed to split up into three paths; two leading to the edges of the sphere, which seemed to be exits, whilst the third in the middle led up to a large holographic globe with several information points pointing out of it. Several people were grouped around it, each seeming to wear the same clothing as me, but slightly different, with differing colours.

"As an organisation operating within cyberspace, we've kept our working area as minimalistic as possible to save up on transfer data." George explained. "It is split up into several different Zones as we call them. This is the Entry Zone, where we Log In for work. The holographic image you see in front of us is the Connection Hub." We walked up to it and looked up to see multiple smaller spheres within the big sphere, listing individual peoples names, or those of duos or trios.

"Um...sorry, but, what does this mean? And how does it tie into anime?" I asked.

"Oh, right, right, sorry." George chuckled. "I guess I'd better explain this later then. Here, this way."

We walked down the left path to the edge of the sphere, and as we walked through the door, I felt a slight tingling rush through my spine, like a zap of electricity, as we emerged into an area similar to the Entry Zone, only it was crimson red in colour. The most prominent thing was a large tower in the middle of the area, branching out into several different buildings from it, all mainly rectangular in shape. The tower itself started out with a rectangular base with lights pulsating from the door around it, then a long cylinder neck with windows spiraling around it, leading up to a frisbee (how else am I supposed to describe it?) shaped head with several strong beams of light shooting out from it, which on closer inspection were actually a stream of white 0's and 1's.

"This is the Social and Office Zone, the smaller buildings are for general meetings and group talks in various areas." We looked up at the tower whilst walking to it. "And this is the grand centerpiece of AUTO, the Link Tower, which controls all of our connections to both cyberspace and the internet. Think of it as like our anchor for all data connections."

"Still keeping an open mind..." I mumbled, gazing up at it dumbly.

We approached the glass double sliding doors, and he turned to me. "The ground floor is where the employees in finances and encryption work, so we should be quiet walking through." I nodded in confirmation, and we both walked in.

It seemed to be set out like a stereotypical american office, y'know, with the booths and things? Except the dividing walls were made of red rubbery material, and everybody I saw working (They all looked to be in their 20's/30's) were using holographic computers like in Iron Man or Terminator...or something similar. Whatever the case it was cool.

We walked over to an elevator pod with a control pad beside it, that only had two buttons: G and T, with George pressing T, making the elevator doors open. He gestured for me to go first, so I obliged, and when we were both in, the doors closed and it began to rise, whilst a familiar song played on the way up.

"Death Note's season 2 opening?" I thought aloud.

"Our boss finds it quite amusing." George said.

"What exactly is your boss like?" I asked as I listened to the admittedly hilarious misheard lyrics.

"They're...something." He nodded.

And as we reached the top, and the doors opened...I'd have to say 'something' was an understatement.

The walls were completely covered in posters. All hentai, hardcore. I'm talking KissxSis, Oppai Heart, Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid, Boku no Pico, some I didn't even recognise!...And don't ask me how I knew those four!

A small pink desk sat in the middle of the room, whilst the far end wall was nothing but shelves upon shelves of manga's, anime DVD's, figurines and pillows...you know the ones. The manga was a very diverse range, from Naruto to Fruits Basket and A.I Love You to To Love Ru. The entire right side of the desk was populated by boob mousepads, despite the fact that a holographic screen was up in front of the figure sitting behind it, whilst the entire left side was crisp packets and empty milkshake cartons.

"Seimei?" George spoke up.

"Argh!" A high-pitched voice screamed. "George! How many times have I told you to knock before coming in!?"

"It's an elevator, I can't knock." He shrugged.

The holographic screen quickly closed and I saw...I didn't exactly know what. I couldn't see their face, only two brown anime eyes staring out of the darkness between an upturned pink collar with an oversized zip, and the iconic hood from Himouto! Umaru-chan.

"That still doesn't mean you can just- hey, is this the new guy?" They asked.

"Indeed. Evan, this is the leader of AUTO, Seimei. And this is Evan Cole." He said.

"That's Seimei-CHAN to you!" They said as they jumped on top of their desk, and I could see their entire outfit. They wore a baggy pink jacket with sleeves clearly too big and long, covering their entire arms, whilst it was completely covered in stickers of anime titles, at the time I saw Bleach, Tokyo Ghoul, Soul Eater and Toriko. Meanwhile from the pockets on each side of the zip hung little chibi figures of anime protagonists, mainly Luffy, Naruto, Ichigo, Saitama, memorable ones like that. The jacket also covered their legs, so all I could see were two black boots with eyes on them...I think that was supposed to reference Parasyte.

"Nice to meet you..." I waved weakly.

"So your the new guy, huh?" Seimei asked. "Neat! I liked your computer background!"

'Don't say that so casually!' I begged in my head.

"She may not look it, but she is very capable at her job." George said. "In the aspect that all she does is watch anime all day."

"...She?" Was all I had to say, looking around. "But then...what's with all the-"

"I swing both ways." She stated, rather proudly.

'No shame!' I thought.

"Seimei-chan, I brought Evan here so that we could discuss AUTO in more detail." George explained.

"Yep, I know, I'll give the rundown." Seimei nodded as she sat in her chair, which was a rather luxurious black leather specifically shaped to her body. "First off. Hi, Evan! I'm Seimei, but you can call me Seimei-chan, and I'm the leader of AUTO! I created the cyberspace area we're currently in, and the pixelation transportation technology!"

"You did?" My tone was more surprised then I wanted it to be.

She gave me a half-lidded look. "Yeah, why? Think I can't do something like that?"

"No, no, no! Not at all!" I hurriedly replied.

"Good." She nodded, satisfied. "So I set up this tower so that I could spend all the time in cyberpsace, because real life sucks!"

'...Okay, I'll agree with her on that one.'

"And then, I discovered something!" Her visible eyes lit up with wonder. "I discovered data code connections to the cybernetic fingerprints of anime!"

"What does cybernetic fingerprint mean?" I wondered.

"A cybernetic fingerprint if basically a lasting evidence of something's place online." George explained. "It's like your own fingerprint, when you touch something with it, you leave a lasting impression, so to speak."

"When I first connected with them, they were just jumbles of codes." Seimei put up her holograph screen, which showed a bunch of 0's and 1's floating around. "But I wanted to stay connected with them, because, well, you can no doubt guess. But then! When my connections began to sync up, something incredible happened!" On the screen, the 0's and 1's suddenly all joined together and faded into a blur of glitchy colours, until it refocused as a little bubble, depicting a grassy plain with a white castle in the background. "The code suddenly evolved into an actual representation of their respective anime!"

I stared at the bubble. "Um...if I'm understanding this right...then does that mean...?"

"That's right! The entire anime worlds were created!" Seimei beamed. "The characters, the areas, everything matched how it was depicted! And using my pixelation technology, I could travel inside the worlds created!" A trail of drool ran down her collar. "Oh, the things I saw..."

"Seriously!? You could go into anime!?" I gaped. This was a frikkin' game changer! Was this really being presented to me!?

"Yeah...but then, a problem arose." She folded her sleeves in a stoic manner. "Not long after these worlds were created, they got infected...with Viruses."

"Infected?" I echoed.

She nodded. "I don't know where they came from or how they came to be...but they started popping up in all the anime worlds.

Suddenly, the screen changed to depict...I'm not sure what to compare it to. It literally looked like a blob of black goo with a spherical body shape, and two tentacles for arms extending out of its sides, acting as arms, whilst a red crest was shown in the center of it as a face. The Crest looked like a 'V', only the edges spiked out into dragon heads, and the outer side of it spiked out like shark teeth.

"This is a Virus." Seimei said. "Or rather...a primordial state Virus. This is the initial form all Viruses take, and is what they are most commonly described as here in AUTO."

"So...these things invade the anime worlds?" I clarified.

"Hai." Seimei confirmed. "However, as I just said, this is their primordial form, which they first emerge as. Given enough time, they evolve into their battle form, which could look like anything. I'll give an example."

The screen flickered, and the black blob was replaced by a dark red dragon head with yellow light glowing from inside of it, and black flames for eyes, with arms that ended in a black spike for a 'hand' and purple leathery wings extending from it. Purple spikes ran down its back all the way to its lower half, which was just a long tail with a smaller dragon head on the end of it.

"This is the first battle form Virus I encountered. I call it the Wildfirern." Seimei said.

"You named it?" I thought aloud.

"It's a cool little category thing!" She protested. "Anyway, Viruses proved to be very dangerous to the created worlds." The screen changed again, to show a primordial form Virus seemingly drinking from the ground. It was that same grassy field from earlier, only the area was now dark and grey, and everything seemed to be dying and deteriorating and glitching. "Viruses feed off of the codes data, breaking them down until eventually, there's nothing left. Essentially, they eat worlds."

"Lovely..." I mumbled.

"In the beginning I could deal with Viruses just fine on my own, but soon more and more anime worlds were created, and more and more Viruses kept appearing and I couldn't keep up! So that's when I decided to enlist help."

"So you created AUTO."

"You catch on quick, Cole! Yep! I started reaching out to people who would be willing to help me fight Viruses! It was pretty easy to find the right people when I could check their internet history."

George stepped forward. "That's how she found me. I was one of the original 5 she chose to fight Viruses, and we 5 became the AUTO Manager's." He then looked at her with folded arms. "And then?"

Seimei gave him an annoyed look. "But then I realised I just couldn't pull people out of their lives and away from any proper income...so I improvised! I also started recruiting office workers! Y'know, the guys downstairs. Being able to provide them with cyberspace technology, they've become the greatest technology supporters ever! That way, we could turn a profit to give to everybody, and make fighting Viruses a full-time job!"

"You created AUTO just to get others to help you?" I said.

"Pretty much." George said. "Although, now she's employed so many AUTO users that she can afford to sit there and watch anime all day."

"I resent that! Even though it's true!" She argued.

"And...your asking ME to do this? To fight Viruses?"

"Eeeeeexactly." She said. "With your otaku knowledge, your perfect to work here!"

"...I'd be able to actually go into anime worlds?"

"Yeah."

I took a slow, deep breath. "I'm not dreaming this, am I?"

"Nope."

"Please let me sign up!" I begged with a lit up face. "I'll work as hard as possible with whatever you need me to do!"

"Excellent!" Seimei nodded as the screen shifted to show a handprint. "Just place your hand here, then, please."

I complied and pressed my palm against the screen, wherein it quickly turned into a profile with my face, name, and a bunch of empty boxes around it.

"There you go! Your all registered!" Seimei cheered. "George, he'll be in your group, if that's okay."

"Fine by me." He nodded. "We'll head over to the Custom Zone and get him fitted."

"Good!" She nodded. "Welcome aboard, Evan Cole! Hope to see some fine work from you!"

"Yes!" I snapped to attention. "You can count on me! Thank you very much!" I bowed.

"Heh, polite. I like him. See you guys around!" She waved us out into the elevator.

As Death Note's iconic opening played, I rubbed my hands together anxiously. I mean, the amount of time in which all of this had been revealed to me was staggering. Should I have been more shocked? Should I have screamed? Fainted? I don't know, but all I felt was excitement and giddiness.

"What do you think of our boss?" George asked, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"She seems nice." I said as basically as possible.

"Well, I could think of more accurate terms like 'weird' or 'eccentric', but nice works well too." He shrugged. "Anyway, looks like I'm your AUTO Manager now, Evan. My job is to basically lay down the rules, show you around, and make sure you don't screw anything up. Sound good?"

"Fine by me." I replied.

"Great! Then let's get you sorted." He said before falling silent as we arrived at the office floor.

We walked all of the way out of the red zone and into a yellow zone, with the same platforms and asthetics as the previous two. Looking to the left I could see various yellow cylinder pods with a golden holodraphic 'C' hovering above them. Looking at their double slide open doors, some of them were glowing red, whilst some were glowing green, presumably for the standard 'In Use or Not In Use' code.

"That's stop two on our little tour of the Custom Zone." George told me, noticing where I was looking. "Since you're new here, stop one is here."

We halted in front of a rainbow coloured pentagon with several circular devices embedded into it, which was slowly tilting, like the earth.

"Place your hand here, if you please." George gestured to a holograph in front of him. I did as he said and the shape started spinning around wildly for a moment, until it halted with one of it's faces in front of me. Then, one of the circular devices extended out and fell down, forcing me to catch it. Now that I had one in my hands, I could observe it more closely. It was jet black in colour, and had a sky blue 'A' on the front of it, with three little arrowheads at the top, bottom-left and bottom-right, the top one being red, the bottom-left being yellow, and the bottom-right being green.

"Say hello to your new best friend; The AUTO-Pack." George introduced it. "This is the essential device for all AUTO field members. It fits nice and snug into your chest there." He pointed at where the indentation was.

"Like this?" I slotted it in, finding that it fit perfectly. Suddenly, the lines along my black suit lit up as glowing white energy lines. "Woah! What the-!?"

"There you go! All activated!" George nodded, pointing at thew new lines on the suit. "This is the indication of your AUTO-Pack's energy, shown through how brightly it glows. We call it P-Colour or P-Energy, short for Pack-Colour or Pack-Energy."

"Er...is the colour white a bad thing?"

"Oh, no, no, that's how they all start out. Don't worry, you'll be able to change the colour momentarily." He smiled. "Now then, a basic rundown. Press the green arrowhead, you can take it off to do so."

Deciding to, I took the AUTO-Pack off, causing the white lines, or, P-Colour to fade, and pressed the green arrowhead, causing a holographic screen to pop up in front of me, showing the same settings from when I signed up.

"This is your Status Screen, it basically shows you how you're doing, very useful if you're in a pinch. Think of it like any RPG menu." The spiky blonde said. "Now then, yellow button, please."

I pressed it, and the image changed to a list of empty rectangular buttons, whilst at the top was a white number: 39029771458 next to a yellow phone symbol.

"This is your Contacts List. If you make any friends here, register them up and you can call them anytime, or check how whatever world they're currently in." He then started walking. "Now then, let's head back to the pods you saw earlier."

"What about the red one?" I asked.

He looked over his shoulder at me and grinned. "Oh, that's the fun one. We'll get onto that soon, I assure you." And he continued walking, so I quickly slotted the A-P back into its slot and ran after him.

The cylinders were lined up in rows as me and George walked along them. "These are our Custom Pods. Seimei created them as a neat little customization thing, like in games, to change appearance, hair style, eye colour, all of that."

"That is genius." I approved, when one of the red doors turned green.

"Ah, look's like someone's just finishing." We stood in front of it and waited for the person to come out.

"This is so COOL! Oh!" I flinched as a young woman with bright blue hair jumped out, sporting a rack that had to be an E-Cup from first glance.

...Oh yeah, thought I was half-hearted about the whole pervert thing, huh?

"Sorry about that! It's free to use now!" She apologised before hurrying off, with me staring after her. Looooooooong after her.

"...You like that?" George asked.

I gave him a thumbs up. "Indeed."

"Your turn now, don't worry, it's easy to use." He pushed me in and the door closed behind me. Looking around it seemed to be blank, only there was a mirror behind me and a button next to the door. I clicked it and the doors turned red.

"Welcome, Customization On." A robotic voice said as a holographic screen appeared in front of me, several different rectangular boxes with the categories 'Body', 'Hair', 'Eyes', 'Nose', 'Mouth', 'Jacket', 'Trousers' and 'P-Colour'.

"This seems simple enough." I thought aloud, clicking on 'Body'. It was quite simple, with choices for skin colour (I don't really know who'd want a purple skin tone, maybe DBZ fans) and sliders for limbs and muscle mass.

"It can't really be this simple." I tapped my finger on height and slid it along, and got a shock as I extended in height rapidly, banging my head against the ceiling. "Ouch!" I rubbed my head using my now freakishly long arm. "Maybe it is. No thank you." I clicked the 'Return' button, which reduced me back to my normal height. "I think I'm okay body wise."

I moved onto hair, and moving the slider along my hair suddenly extended and flopped down over my eyes, making me quickly return it to standard length. "Let's see what I can do here..."

I eventually made my hair have two, sweeping, blade-like strands down either side of my face, with the rest of it being swept back, apart from having two spiking strands jutting off in a 'V' shape just above the back of my neck. I also changed my hair to a neon green colour primarily, whilst giving both sets of extensions a dark green in contrast.

'Eyes' was a bit weird. I initially had a pink gear spinning around next to my iris (that was weird), then my sclera turned bright violet (had to fix that), but I eventually just kept my blue eyes...with a crimson red highlight for emphasis.

I left nose untouched, didn't want to mess with that, but experimented a bit with my mouth, giving myself buck teeth for a split second before fixing it. I essentially just moved onto 'Jacket' which was obviously what I was wearing. There were a bunch of extra features too like scarves and hats, so I got to work.

I changed the jackets main colour from black to dark red, and I kept the sleeves baggy, but with a more funnel design so that they were thin up until my elbows, which I accentuated with a dark pink DNA loop around, whilst also having dark pink spikes painted along the wrists. I had kept the unzipped design, though I added a pair of mean-looking orange eyes to the hood, and I changed the zip from silver colour to bronze whilst including two dark pink 'X's on each side of the zipline at the stomach, plus a little keychain of a blue star hanging from my zipper for good measure. My trousers were now a light, sandy brown, and were much more crisp and long, with baggy pockets and little black cartoony skulls on the knees.

Finally, there was my P-Colour. Seeing as how it was going to be emphasised across my suit the entire time, I decided to go with a nice electric green, upon which the lines actually did fade into the more appealing colour.

After double checking my new appearance and deciding I was satisfied, I clicked confirm and felt another slight zap run up my spine.

"Customization Complete." The voice beeped, prompting me to turn around and unlock the door before stepping out.

"Niiiiiiiice." George approved as he walked over with a cup of coffee, the mug being a bland cream colour. "I hardly recognise ya. Like the choices though."

"Thanks." I smiled gratefully. I didn't feel at all different to be honest. It was still me, just with a lot more colour, I guess.

He chugged down his coffee before speaking. "Ahhhh...right then! I think your finally ready! Follow me." As we walked, he talked. "Obviously, we've recruited you to fight Viruses, and in order to do that, you've gotta know how to fight. Or rather, use what's been given to you effectively. In order to do that, you've gotta do some training!"

We halted in front of what looked like an electric yellow sphere in a spidernet structure. "This is Training. One basic round in here and you'll be all set for your new job."

We both walked in to see three different doors with names above them: 'Basic', 'Advanced' and 'VS'.

"You'll be wanting this one." George sad as we walked through the 'Basic' door, zapping us into a little square room comprised of yellow cubes, and, really nothing more. "It automatically generates your own private training room for you and anybody your training together with. In that regard, Nora is probably either in her own training room, or she's already finished. Remember Nora?"

"Definitely." I nodded dumbly.

"Great! Now then, one practice battle should get you enough experience! Ever been in a fight before, Evan?"

"Not really."

"Yeah, not many new recruits are. Let's change that, shall we?" He stood in front of me. "Time to show you the final feature of your AUTO-Pack. Press the red button." Nodding, I did as I was told.

A red screen suddenly popped up in front of me, making me jump back. It depicted several white outlines of various weapons from cannons to sabres to...dolls.

"The red screen is where you store your weapon." The mentor explained. "We create the codes for all forms of weapons, which is then transferred into your pack. When first created, weapons are simple in their coding, but become stronger and adapt to their users fighting style, in order to make them truly unique. Think of it like a weapon level-up system."

"There sure are a lot..." I mumbled, flicking my finger to scroll through them...wait, was that last one a pair of socks?

"They're made by some of our more technological employees. Everybody can tell they just love going overboard with them." George admitted. "Since your new, this screen will only show up once, and once you pick a weapon, it'll be with you forever."

"No pressure or future consideration, then." Sighing, I spun the cycle, watching the outlines fly past me. "There are a lot to choose from...maybe I should just pick the one it stops on."

I watched it scroll slower and slower, but then I tapped the screen in order to stop it. "Hold on, was that a...?" I rolled the scroll back to see something that had caught my attention.

It was a ring. Nothing more, nothing less. It had a basic design, with a single line circling around it.

"What's this one?" I asked, pointing it out.

George stared at it with a puzzled expression. "Huh...I've never seen that one before, actually. Must be new."

"A ring, huh?" I thought about that for a moment. Could a ring really be a weapon? Maybe if you swung it hard enough...or you could choke someone with it, but that seemed a bit dark for me. Still, it did seem like an interesting concept...and I was really indecisive anyway, so otherwise I'd be here forever. "I'll go with it."

"Really? In that case, give it a tap." George gestured.

I hit the screen with my forefinger, causing it to disappear, as a blue code suddenly formed in the air, materialising into the ring, being about the size of a hula hoop. As it fell, I instinctively reached out and caught it, and as I did, it became a neon green colour, the same as my P-Colour.

"So this is my weapon..." I gave it a few experimental swings. It felt really light to me and easy to wield, but it also seemed to have a weight behind it.

"I look forward to seeing how it evolves under your ownership." George nodded. "Since its your weapon now, you can name it like in Bleach."

I stared at it for a moment. A few things came to mind, but I don't think calling it 'Donut' would make me very intimidating. Beware, Evan, wielder of giant delicious pastry. In the end, I decided on the only thing I could think of.

"Zero." I dubbed it.

"I gotta admit, I like the way you think." George approved. "So then, what do you say we put it to the test?"

He tapped one of the cubes on the walls, and suddenly something materialised in the centre of the room. It was literally a silver ball with yellow robotic eyes. "This is a VC, or, Virus-Copy, designed as a training method. All you have to do is hit it until it's eyes turn into little crosses."

"Makes sense." I gripped Zero with both hands and held my new weapon out to the side as I shuffled towards it, whilst it just stared at me.

"Your suit gives you all the basic abilities of an anime protagonist; increased speed, reflexes, durability and jumping. Just know that it's still gonna hurt when you get hit." He warned me.

I stopped shuffling as I was right in front of the VC, before I pulled my ring back and swung down with all of my might. Only for it to roll away, leaving the ring to just bounce off of the blocky ground uselessly and make me come dangerously close to dropping it.

"I am having instant regrets." I affirmed aloud. "How exactly am I supposed to fight with this?" I tried swinging with it again, only for the robot to bounce over. I jumped after it and holy shit did I overshoot it. I underestimated my overpowered anime jumping capabilities and smacked straight into the wall, brusing the entire front of my body as I fell flat on my back.

"You okay there?" George asked.

"Give me a minute!" I scrambled back to my feet, only to see the VC rolling back and forth in a taunting manner. "Oh, it is on!" I chased after it and swung wildly, only for it to pull a Sonic and spin dash away, bouncing off of the walls in the process.

"Ha!" As it rebounded of a wall, I timed my swing just right and hit it, throwing it across the room with sparks erratically shooting out of its spherical body. "How do you like that!?" Not very much, it seemed, as it turned towards me with angry eyes.

"Oh, now you've done it. It's going into battle form." George pointed.

Suddenly the two sides of the sphere popped open, and two arms with a silver gatling gun on the ends of each extended out, whilst the bottom popped out into four mechanical legs. What was previously it's face glowed completely red as a smaller head emerged from the top of the body, with a single red scanning eye.

"...Fudge nuggets." I cursed as I rolled out of the way of the gatling gun fire. "You give these things gatlings!?"

"Gotta up the challenge level." George reasoned.

I ran around behind it and hit its back, only for it to smack me across the head, making me fall to the ground with a headache. I quickly jumped away as it stabbed the ground where I previously was with one of its legs, then landed against the wall and jumped back off of it, holding the ring forward all Superman style and crashing into its body. If I wasn't being viciously attacked I would've been amazed at how awesome I was currently being.

It began to glitch from the fatal wound, but as I tried to pull my weapon out, I found it to be stuck, giving the opponent the chance to aim both of its gun arms at me. Thinking quickly, I planted both my feet on its body and jumped back, pulling Zero out and launching myself back, thankfully out of the way of fire. Taking the chance, I gripped my ring tightly and swung as hard as possible, crushing the VC into a pancake, and making it burst apart into code that quickly disappeared, allowing me to sigh in relief.

"Well done, Evan." George clapped as he strolled over to me. "Not bad for your first try."

I panted to regain my composure. "Hah...don't just throw me in like that."

"Sorry, part of your contract." He joked. "Since your finished, just press the red button on your AUTO-Pack, and your weapon will turn back into it." I did so, and watched as the weapon broke down into code before flying into the device now on my chest. "You okay?"

"I think so...but wow! That felt awesome! I could, like, jump and fight and, and, just be a hero!" I exclaimed.

George smirked as he folded his arms. "If that's your comment, then I think you're ready."

"Do you mean what I think you mean?" I giddily questioned as he nodded.

"Let's head over to the Action Zone."

 **HAPPY NEW YEAR!**

 **Thank you all for the great support that I was given in the first chapter! And wow! I got a ton of OC's! I don't think I'd be able to accept all of them and still give them all suitable 'screen time'. In any case, there were some really good ones! In case you guys are interested, here are the top candidates for acceptance:**

 **Vaati Star**

 **WildFang14**

 **CTChronos**

 **ShinBP**

 **Shiranai Atsune**

 **Yukihana Kye**

 **pine swiftwings**

 **KorianneAnders**

 **dualitydisorder**

 **Assassinkai742**

 **Those are the top choices so far. If you weren't listed on here, that can only mean one thing...you got lazy with the personality. I need long, unique, specific details that will make them an interesting character! And another thing! This applies to you guys listed here too: Don't give your characters names like 'Dragon Star' or something like that! They're real people! If you do, I'll give them a name myself. And I can assure you, it will be bland and forgettable. You ARE still free to submit, but the margin is very narrow now, you'll have to pull out all the creative neurons in your brain to have a chance.**

 **And that's all for now, folks! Thank you again so much for showing such interest in this story! In fact, I created an almost identical concept alongside this one, titled 'GEAR' (Game Exploration And Recreation), which, as you can guess, is a similar concept, only revolving around videogames! Say if you're interested in this concept at least.**

 **Thank you for waiting patiently, and I'll see you all next chapter!**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: One Piece

We left the Custom Zone and walked into a green zone. This one had a lot of identical computer devices with pods similar to the one I arrived in. I saw people disappearing into green data code inside them as we walked along.

"And this...is the best Zone." George practically stated. "Welcome to the Launch Zone. THIS is where we turn our AUTO members into code, and send that code into the code that creates the anime worlds...or in simple terms, teleporters."

"There are...a lot of them." I stated.

"We have a lot of workers." He shrugged. "This is obviously the most important Zone, so it's constantly busy, as we all go out to fight Viruses. But, it's also incredibly busy because of a lot of workers who use their free time."

Consider my interest peaked. "Sorry, you get free time?"

"If you work long and hard, yeah." George confirmed. "We also get holiday days."

'Sweet lord I must've died.' I couldn't help but think.

"Ah! Here we go!" We finally found a vacant computer/pod combo, with George immediately strolling over to the screen. "Right then, whilst I'm looking, I'd better teach you about Rankings."

"Rankings?" I echoed.

"Right, every AUTO field worker has a Rank. C, B or A." He explained. "Your Rank determines what level of Anime you can travel to. To begin with, C stands for Casual, and it represents, really, Slice of Life's, light Fantasy's, anime that have no dangers in them...well, aside from the odd tsundere."

"B Rank stands for Beginner, and includes basic Shonen anime, or early long lasting anime. Anime that has other fighting threats, but nothing you shouldn't be able to handle."

"Lastly, A Rank stands for Advanced. This is for really overpowered anime, I'm talking world destroying enemies. This includes Dragon Ball, One Punch Man, Jojo's Bizarre Adventures, stuff like that."

"So...since I first joined, does that mean I'm a Rank C?" I asked.

"Actually, all newcomers start at B." Was the response. "It's just that some workers feel more comfortable in casual anime, so become Rank C only."

"Huh..." I thought for a moment. "Uh...excuse me for asking but, are there any other Ranks? It's just, I'm used to something like an extra 'Rank S' or something."

He seemed to stop at that. "...Well...there is...ONE, more Rank."

"Can you...tell me?" I persisted.

George waited a moment. "It's...Rank D."

"Hold on, D? What does that stand for?"

He seemed to involuntarily cough. "It, um...it stands for...Dirty."

"...Oh...oooooooooooooh." Realisation dawned on me.

"Seimei keeps all the Rank D codes to herself...but she sends them to anyone she likes or thinks she deserves them...I don't know how she created so many."

'Does it encompass just Hentai? Or is it Ecchi too? Does she hog Highschool DxD all for herself?' I then spoke aloud. "George...did Seimei give any Rank D codes to you?"

He visibly flinched at that. "N-No..."

'He's lying. He flinched. He totally flinched. She totally gave him one. Or several. How many? How many does he have? How many has he been to? What do you even do in an anime like that?' The thoughts raced through my head before I could stop them.

"Anyway!" He loudly cut off my brain train. "With that explained, do you want to drop to a Rank C and do a Casual? Or do you wanna stay at B and do a Beginner or Casual?"

"I think I'll stay at B, and...I don't really wanna choose. Whatever's available I guess." What? If you were in that situation, given an option of going INTO an anime, would you be able to just choose? Better to make it random.

"Mmmmmmmmm ah! Here we go!" He literally pulled the hologram screen away from the computer base and showed it to me. It had a picture of a very familiar title on it.

"One Piece?" I spoke instinctively.

"Yeah. Looks like a low-level Virus showed up in the Orange Island Arc. Early on, so it's B-Class." He explained. "Should be perfect for you."

I looked at the pod next to the computer. "So...how does this work?"

"If you want the short version, just press the big green button, hop in the pod, and your code is shot over there." George said. "If you want a bit more of an explanation, though..."

He showed me the screen again, but tapped a little hiding arrow on the left side, making a long list of AUTO profiles with either a red 'A' or blue 'B' beside them, along with a gauge underneath them, with some parts of them coloured red, whilst the other parts were yellow.

"As an AUTO, you have your own 'Digital Fingerprint' that defines you." He pointed. "When you enter an anime, your Digital Fingerprint creates a copy of that universe unique to you, that way the work of other AUTO workers won't interfere with your own. The gauge here shows what point in the anime timeline the certain AUTO member has interacted with. So, as you can see with this member here, they've been in the Enies Lobby, Thriller Bark and New Fishman Island Arcs."

"So, every AUTO worker has their own individual version of the anime world?" This was confusing...

"Pretty much, but the original code of the world is unchanged, so whenever a Virus attacks, they attack the main data of the created world itself, which means that they can appear in any AUTO members anime version. Honestly, makes it easier for us." George returned the screen to its original position.

"And I just get in here?" I pointed at the pod.

George pressed the green button on the screen, the word 'OK' appearing on it. "Now you do."

Obediently, I stepped into the pod, as the glass door closed behind me. I found myself clenching and unclenching my fists. I was nervous, of course I was nervous, but I was excited as hell. I found myself pinching my arm to see if I was asleep. Thankfully I wasn't...and I was a bit scared too. Very scared, actually.

"Don't worry, as it's your first trip, I'll be guiding you." An orange mail icon appeared in front of his face. "Ah...I'll have to take this first. Oh well, you can have time to get your bearings."

"Wait, what?" I stared dumbly.

"Good luck!" He waved as suddenly my vision became pure white as my body felt like it was suddenly lifted off the ground.

"Aaaaaahhhh!" I couldn't help but cry out as my feet, without warning, found footing again, and promptly lost it to fall flat on my back.

The whiteness in my eyes cleared, revealing a bright blue sky with thin clouds...okay, yeah, I was in an anime, because blue skies where I come from were practically unheard of.

I just lay there for a while. Call me crazy, but I was scared to sit up. Scared to take a look around. It was so exciting and nerve wracking. As soon as I sit up, I began work. A very weird, very awesome line of work.

Eventually, I sat up, and looked around. There were simple wooden buildings to the left and right of me as I sat on a stone path. I patted the ground beneath my feet to indeed feel stone, before I stood up.

"Is this..." I looked at the buildings. "Is this really Orange Town? From One Piece?" I carefully moved around, as if everything was glass and it would shatter if I stepped too hard. Stepping on my tiptoes to stare over the buildings as much as possible, I managed to see a large building with a very distinct pirate flag flying on top of it. "Holy shit, I am. I'm in One Piece."

I had to let that sink in for a moment. "I'm in One Piece..." I involuntarily giggled like a little moe. "I'M...in ONE PIECE."

I began staring at the buildings around me again, only to jump back when I saw something in one of the windows. "Gah! What is...huh?" Curious, I walked over to it and peered.

It was me. Except, it, kinda wasn't. My eyes were far too large, my face seemed softer and plainer, and my hair seemed unnaturally shinier.

'...No way...I have an anime face!' I continued to stare at myself, as my reflection now gave off a little smile, before I began pulling on my face, finding myself able to stretch my eyes out pretty far. 'Ouch, this hurts...but it's awesome!' I continued to pull my own face into different shapes, and watching as I could make my eyes turn into sparkles. 'Yikes! That's weird!' I also put on my best 'pissed off' impression and found a red anger mark appearing on my forehead. 'Ha! Anime logic rules!'

"Hey! You!" I jumped in shock and turned around to see three pirates looking at me. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Oh, um...nothing." I quickly replied. 'Who are these guys? I didn't realise there'd be other characters here!...But that just makes it even cooler!'

"I ain't seen him around here before." One of them mumbled to another.

"In case you didn't know, this town belongs to the great Buggy the Clown!" The presumed leader of the trio threatened. "If you know what's good for ya, you'll leave whilst you have the chance!"

"Er...right..." 'Am I not supposed to be talking with these guys? Is this breaking some kind of AUTO code of conduct? Maybe I should just get out of here whilst I can...' I quickly turned and began to jog away.

"Hey! We're not done talking to you, ya idiot!" I felt one of them forcefully place a hand on my shoulder.

Almost instantly I grabbed his wrist, and threw him over my shoulder, slamming him into the ground.

"Ohhhhhhhhh!" I gasped. "D-Did I do that? Man, that felt instinctive!" I looked back at the other two to see them staring at me in shock.

"You punk! You just got yourself a death wish!" The two of them drew a sword each and charged at me.

Thinking quickly, I jumped up and kicked them both in the face with a foot each, before kicking one of them to knock him into the other. I heard a groan behind me and realised it was the first guy getting up, so I quickly spun around and decked him in the face, launching him off of his feet a few paces back before falling to the ground.

I stood there for a second, staring at the three defeated pirates. "Wow...that...felt awesome! I just kicked their asses! Anime powers are the best!" it was then that I remembered what I was here to do. "Ah! Right! The Virus! It should be around here somewhere, can't be too hard to find."

I started sprinting around town (finding out that I was much faster and had a lot more stamina, both of which felt fantastic) looking around for any abnormalities. 'I didn't realise Orange Town was so big!' Eventually though, I turned a corner and froze.

I saw a primordial form Virus, looking like a red blob with that same 'V' crest on it, with its two tentacles stuck into a building, a bunch of empty spaces where I presume houses would have been behind it.

"So this is a Virus..." I watched it in nothing more then pure fascination as its tentacle arms seemed to be pumping. As they did, the building it was stuck into began greying, until it lost all of it colour, upon which it crumbled into nothingness, making me jump back in shock as not even dust was left behind.

After it had finished its meal. The crest on its body turned to face me, and its jello body seemed to wobble, as if to represent shock, before its tentacle arms swiveled around, indicating it was now facing me.

"Right, now I have to fight it and...kill it...I guess." I tapped the red button on my AUTO-Pack, causing emerald green pixels to come out of it and form into a ring in front of me, before turning fully into Zero in a flash of light as I grabbed it.

The Virus seemed to sense my intentions, as it suddenly shrank down, before launching itself at me, I jumped past it as it landed with a splat on the ground, before spinning around and facing me again.

'I've gotta hit it hard right from the beginning, seeing as its not in its big bad form yet!' I ran at it and swung Zero down gripping it with both hands, hitting the Virus right on its head as its body caved in downward from the force of the blow, before popping back up again, looking very dazed. I t quickly recovered though and swung both its tentacles at me, but I knocked them away with Zero before swinging the giant ring into its side, launching it a fair distance back as it hit the ground again.

"Yeah! How do you like that!?" The Virus responded by reforming itself...and then sliding off down an alleyway! "Wha-? Hey! get back here!"

I quickly gave chase the little red blob zipped around corners in an attempt to lose me. "Quit running you little bitch! You're supposed to be the villain in this situation! So let me be a proper hero and beat you up!"

I saw it dash across a road and I ran after it, only to freeze as something caught my eye. That 'something' was only a cannonball shooting straight TOWARDS MY FACE.

'Holy shit!' My mind went into panic mode as I held up Zero in front of me hoping to act as some sort of shield. Instead, the force of the blow knocked me onto my back, and I pushed my weapon forward, causing the cannonball to be thrown high into the air. A few seconds later, I heard a large splash, indicating it had fallen into the ocean. 'Phew, I'm alive...but what the hell was that!?'

"Hey! What happened there!?" A voice yelled.

"I-I don't know, Captain Buggy!" Another voice said.

"Don't spout that crap with me! The Buggy Ball just went skyward! They're not supposed to bounce you idiot!" The first voice screamed.

"C-Captain! There's someone there!" A third voice said.

I sat up and saw a very large building with a familiar skull and crossbones looking like a clown on it. And giving me a very pissed look from on top of it was a very recognisable character.

'That's Buggy.' I thought. 'Buggy the Clown is giving me a pissed off look right now.'

"Eh? Who the hell are you!?" He yelled down at me.

"Uh..." I stood up and brushed myself down. "Evan Cole."

"I don't give two shits about that!" It was funny...he sounded like his Japanese voice actor but...he was speaking in English. "How dare you do that to my Buggy Ball! And what are you even doing here!? Don't you know who this island belongs to!? Me! Buggy the Clown!"

I just stood there for a moment. Here was a golden opportunity. I was talking with Buggy the Clown (Well, more rather he was shouting at me) and could say anything I wanted.

"...Who, Red Nose?" I couldn't resist.

"What did you just say about my nose!?" He screamed. "You want a death wish, you punk!?"

"Actually, I'm kinda busy at the moment." I shrugged, realising I'd let the Virus slip away. "See ya." I then proceeded to walk off.

"Wha...? DON'T JUST IGNORE ME!" I heard him scream. "That's it! MEN! Go and kill that bastard!"

"Yes, Captain Buggy!" I heard a rally of men cheered.

'Sounds like I just earned trouble.' I thought as I looked over my shoulder, seeing several men charging towards me. 'Yyyyyyyyyyep. Okay, Zero, time to see what you can do.'

Pulling my arm back, I tossed Zero like a disc, smacking it into the men with such force it pushed into all of them and knocked them into the sky like bowling pins with cries of pain.

"Neat." I approved as I ran over and picked up my ring.

Just then, a beeping email button appeared in front of me. "Oh, this must be the messaging system." I tapped it, and a screen opened up, revealing a holographic screen with George on it.

"Hey, Elliot. Sorry to leave you like that. Business to attend to." He told me. "How are you getting on?"

"Uhhh...pretty good. I found the Virus in its primordial form, but then it got away, so I'm looking for it again." I stated, jumping upward to land on top of a roof, only to once again underestimate my power and faceplant the roof, before rolling off and falling to the ground, luckily my endurance made sure I felt little pain.

"You okay there?" George asked.

"Fine..." I groaned, standing up. "Hey, uh, George...does it matter if I interfere with any of the events of the anime itself? Because I think I just stopped Buggy's cannonball from leveling the town.

"Oh, don't worry. Like I said, each AUTO worker has their own 'version' which doesn't directly connect to the main source, so events you change won't have much effect." The screen then zoomed in on me. "HOWEVER! There is a rule!"

"Y-Yes!?" I gasped, startled by his zoom-in.

"Even if every AUTO worker has their own version of the anime world, each version still follows the rules and timeline of the anime." George explained. "That means, you cannot interfere with important events, otherwise the code will get all scrambled trying to create a new reality, which it can't handle itself, then Seimei has to go through a lot of work to fix it."

"Th-That sounds hard." I admitted. "How did you figure that out?"

"Actually Seimei learned the hard way." George sighed. "She tried to get the Akame Ga Kill anime to follow the manga and messed everything up..."

"Ah, right." I nodded.

"So that means, no preventing Ace's death, no saving Jiraya, anything like that, got it!?" He affirmed.

"Yessir!" I saluted.

"No saluting please." I stopped. "Anyway, let's see if we can't find that Virus, then."

"Roger." I nodded as I began running around again, searching for the red blob as George's holographic screen followed behind me. "Urgh, how hard can it be to find this stupid Virus!?"

I ran into another street, only to screech to a halt at what I saw in front of me.

"Hey! It's you!"

"You're the one who tossed that cannonball!"

It was Luffy and Nami.

LUFFY. And NAMI.

'Holy shit it's them. It's really them.' I internally panicked. 'What do I do!?'

"What was your name again?" Nami asked. "Eran?"

"E-Evan. Evan Cole." I nodded. I couldn't stop staring at them. They looked exactly like how they did in the anime.

"That was so cool what you did there!" Luffy laughed, grinning like the idiot he was. "You're really strong! You wanna join my crew?"

"Uhh..." I could only speak air. I was talking with an anime protagonist!

"Just shut up a moment, will you!?" Nami raged, her teeth sharpening. "Firstly, I wanna know what you're doing here, and why you just decided to run out into a cannonball. You trying to be a hero or something? This town belongs to Buggy, who now seems to want your head on a silver platter."

'Time to put all those Drama lessons to good use.' I thought. "Sorry to disappoint, but I was just passing through, and a cannonball happened to be in my way."

"Screw that!" She shrieked. "You totally ran out into that cannonball then tossed it sky high! And don't just say you were 'passing through'! Nobody comes to an island like this without good reason!"

'She really is scary!' I couldn't help but think.

"Hahahahaha!" Luffy burst out laughing. "You're both funny!"

"This doesn't concern you!" She cried.

"Is it true? You're the one who deflected that cannonball?" I turned around to see mayor Boodle standing behind me, all dressed up in his battle gear.

"Uh, yeah?" I responded.

He suddenly fell to his hands and knees. "Thank you so much! You put yourself in harms way to defend our town! I'm truly grateful!"

"I-It was nothing, really!" I was not used to being praised this highly! I could feel my face heating up. "P-Please get up..."

I heard a slight cough, and saw George's holographic screen hiding behind a barrel, tapping his wrist as if he had a watch on.

"Well, if you must know..." I turned back to them. "I'm actually looking for something?"

Nami folded her arms. "You after some of Buggy's treasure? I'd answer very carefully if I were you."

"Nonono, you can have that." I assured her, didn't want to get on her bad side. "I'm looking for something for my own form of payment. Have you seen something that looks like red jelly with a 'V' crest on it?"

"Jelly?" She raised an eyebrow. "You're serious."

"Dead serious, actually." I responded.

"Can you eat it?" Luffy inquired.

"It's actually a dangerous creature." I told them. "I need to eliminate it as soon as possible, and it's on this island somewhere."

"Interesting." Nami suddenly seemed to be throwing and catching something, and I realised it was my AUTO-Pack. "And what do you call this then?"

I looked down at my chest to find it gone. "When did you-? Give that back!"

"I've never seen anything like this before." She said, holding it just out of my reach. "It doesn't look like anything I've seen before. So what, you get special equipment for hunting this thing down? Working with dealers or something?"

"It's not like that!" Thinking quickly I relied on my instincts to jump and grab the device before placing it back in my chest. "It's just what I need to hunt this thing. I'm not doing any shady business, I'm just here to stop it before it does any damage."

"Really?" She didn't believe me.

"Yes! Please believe me!" I begged with clasped hands.

"I believe you." Luffy stated plainly.

Nami sighed. "You stopped a cannonball from destroying a whole street, so I guess I can say you have good intentions at heart. Not saying I believe you, but there."

"Thank you!" I bowed. "Right now, though, I do need to go back to looking for it, so, see ya!" I then hurried off.

"Hold on! Join my crew!" Luffy called after me.

"That was so nerve-wracking!" I exhaled.

"You seemed to enjoy talking with them though." George's screen reappeared next to me. "Next time though, save it until after the Virus is gone to have a chat, okay?"

"I will! I will!" I assured him as I continued running.

Eventually I jumped into a new street, and saw something familiar. "A-ha! I've found you!"

It was indeed the Virus but...it seemed a little different. It had lost its tentacles, and the crest on its body was glowing golden, as its body pulsed.

"Yeah, Evan, you may wanna hurry towards it." George coaxed me.

"Ah, why?" I asked as I ran towards it.

"It's in its incubation phase." George told me. "It's getting ready to turn into its battle form! Once it changes form, it focuses less on destroying the data of the world, and more on destroying YOU."

"Gotta hurry then!" I said as I got Zero ready. The Virus seemed to be pulsing faster and faster, like an increasing heartbeat.

'That does not look good!' I got as close as possible as I got my weapon ready.

Just as I reached it, the Virus seemingly exploded in a red and black burst of energy. I felt myself fly back as I landed on my feet, then looked up and gasped at what I saw.

In the place of the Virus was what looked like a giant stone ball, with the same Virus emblem on it. extending out from its sides were two papery spring arms, connected to smaller stone, spiked orbs, as on the top of it was a small square head with two red triangle eyes.

"Ah...it just turned into its Battle form." I stated.

"Hold on, I think this one is recorded." George said. "Ah! It's called a Bowlem. It focuses on spinning and rotation to attack, aaaaaaaaand you might wanna watch out for those flail arms of its."

As if on cue, the new Virus suddenly threw one of its 'fists' at me, forcing me to jump back as it smashed the ground where I previously stood, leaving a sizable crater.

"Ha!" I jumped forward and swung Zero, only for the ring to bounce off of the Virus' now reinforced body and make me stagger back. "...That didn't work...oh crap, that didn't work!"

The Virus slammed its two hands into the ground as leverage before it threw itself upwards, hovering its giant stone body over my head before falling down forcefully. I took a diving leap away to avoid getting pancaked, but just the force of the smash made me bounce across the ground.

"Okay, okay, don't panic..." I told myself as I turned to face it. Its springy arms retracted into its body and its head tucked in before it started rolling towards me. "Fuck that. I'm panicking." I quickly spun around and bolted down the path as the giant bowling ball chased after me.

"You doing okay there?" George asked as the screen floated beside me.

"My attacks don't work against it anymore!" I told him. "How do I get Zero stronger, like you said it would?"

"Definitely not running away." He responded.

"There must be something I can do! C'mooooooon, think!" I hit my head as turned a corner.

And found myself running towards a very familiar cannon.

"Idea forming! Hey! Big Red Nose Day!" I yelled, waving at him.

"Who said what about my nose!?" He screamed, turning towards me. "YOU!"

"Hey! It's you!" Luffy noticed me, seemingly about to fight him.

"What the hell is that behind you!?" Nami pointed.

"Thing I was chasing, got bigger!" I pointed.

"I'll teach you to make fun of my nose!" As I hoped, Buggy turned the cannon towards me and lit it.

"Thanks, Buggy!" I cried as I jumped out of the way, the cannonball zipped past me and smashed into the Bowlem, making it fly back with giant cracks in its body.

"Wha...? You little shit! You tricked me!" The clown raged.

"Alright! Now let's see if I can actually do the thing every single human being fears...doing my job!" I declared as triumphantly as possible.

The Bowlem wobbled around, its body covered in a deep spiderweb, as it randomly threw one of its fists that swerved off course and destroyed one of the buildings next to it. Taking the opportunity I ran forward and hit it hard in the middle of its damage with Zero, making an audible 'crack' that knocked it back. "Yes! I can damage it now!"

"What is that thing!?" Nami pointed.

"It's the thing I was after." I told her.

"That is NOTHING like what you described!" She argued as I dodged another punch.

"It changed!" I shrugged as I jumped onto a roof.

Now more cautious of its injury, the Virus stayed as motionless a possible as it launched another fist towards me, making me jump over it before swinging Zero down onto its head, smashing its head into its body like a whack-a-mole. It's head quickly popped back up with an angry expression as it shot both of its fists forward, making me grab my weapon with both hands and hold it out in front of me as a shield. A poor one, as the force of the blow sent me flying back onto the ground.

"Ack...that hurt..." I stood back up again and faced it. "Right...I've messed around for long enough. I need to finish this now! In anime, you can always win through...determination...or getting really mad...or screaming. Maybe if I just strain on a thought or something."

I held Zero with both of my hands as hard as possible and...shuddered. Shuddered hard. I was in the mindset that protagonists vibrate a lot when they power up, so I vibrated. And what do you know, Zero began glowing green.

"Oh my god, it works." I marveled. "Right then, let's try it! Hraaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

With all of my strength, I tossed the ring towards the Bowlem, the weapon spinning faster and faster until it turned into a green sawblade that smashed into the Virus, making its cracks light up with black energy as they spread across the rest of its body, as Zero buried itself deeper and deeper into the monsters body, before it burst through completely, and the golem crumbled into pieces, the little broken pieces then dissolved into red and black cubes that quickly vanished.

"Well, you did a bit of procrastinating, but that's mission complete." George told me from his holographic screen. "Well done. You have a few minutes to check out your surroundings before we beam you back."

"Thanks, George." I nodded as the screen disappeared. I then walked over and picked up Zero, before it dissolved into data and flew back into my AUTO-Pack.

"That was AWESOME!" Luffy cheered as he jumped over to me. "You have to join my crew!"

"Oh, um..." I looked past the smiling idiot and saw Nami stuffing treasure into two bags, so they must've defeated Buggy whilst I was fighting the Bowlem. "Luffy, I appreciate the offer. I really do. But, unfortunately, I can't join."

"Eh!? Why not!?" He shrieked.

"I've got a job to do, and it's very important that I do it. I'd still...like to be friends though." Hard to describe what I was feeling. I think it might've been the feeling of asking a crush out.

"Mmmmmmmmmm." He gave me an expression between pouting and thinking, making his face turn red. I thought he was gonna pass out before he smiled. "Okay then! If you've got something you need to do, that's cool!"

"Hey, Luffy. We'd better get a move on." Nami told him, carrying the bags of treasure.

"Okay, navigator! Let's meet up again some time, Evan! Shishishi!" He laughed, before hurrying off.

I stood there for a moment in blissful shock. I stared around at the world and reflected on what just happened to me. "...Yep, I can die happy."

"Not just yet, hopefully." George said as his screen appeared. "We're beaming you back now. Stay still now."

I complied and stood stoic, as a white light enveloped my vision once again, with the weightless feeling returning as I shakily landed on my feet, the white light fading away to reveal I was back in the tube as it opened, and I stepped out to be met with a clapping George.

"Not too bad for a first timer." He nodded.

"Thanks, I gotta admit...thought I was gonna die several times." I admitted.

"Ah, bit inaccurate in your term there." He told me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"AUTO is still a real business...to some degree. And anime worlds are incredibly dangerous. If anybody died, that would be a terrible tragedy. Seimei may be strange, but she's not an SAO villain." He explained.

"So, we can't die?" I asked hopefully.

"Not in the way you'r thinking of, no. You're body is made up of code, if you were to 'die' your code would simply be destroyed, your physical self is unharmed." George went on. "But, it is difficult to recreate code from someone, it could take a month, or longer depending how advanced you are. And of course, without your work time, we can't offer you any pay. So basically, if your code is deleted, you're going without payment for a while, good luck with that. Think of it as a 'try not to die' incentive."

'That's even worse then death!' I thought.

"But enough of that dark talk. You soundly defeated a Virus, meaning you're fit to be among our ranks." He pulled up a holographic screen. "Let's see, it's...8:55 your time. Okay, work hours last from as early as 6 in the morning to as late as 9 at night. You're free to start work as early as 6, and end as early as the same time in the afternoon, but no signing in later then 9 in the morning, understand?"

"Got it." I hadn't realised it had gotten so late! Time must've flown by...

"As soon as you log on, you'll be registered as starting work. I presume you remember the way you got in?"

"Hard not to forget." I said.

"There should now be an AUTO icon on your computer. Just click that, badda boom, badda bing you're in. Simple as. Then you can just come here and start working. You can have free time in the Social Zone whenever you want to rest, but you've gotta do at least one trip every day, and make sure you keep within the Rank, so only B and C Rank worlds."

"Yep." Okay, this part was boring, admittedly. But far less boring then a real job rules explanation.

"Here, I'll walk you back." I followed George out of the green dome and back into the blue one, into a room with a green light above it, showing an empty capsule. "Right then, that's your first day of work done! And as you heard from Seimei, I'll be your AUTO Manager. Any problems or questions, just give me a call."

A yellow mailbox flashed in front of me. I tapped it, making it open into a screen with George's profile and his contact number, which I tapped, making it go to my contacts list. "Thanks, George. For everything."

"No problem at all, Evan. Remember, as early as 6, or as late as 9." He reminded me.

"I'll remember." I promised as I stepped into the capsule.

He gave me a wave as white light enveloped me once again,and I felt myself get thrown upwards before falling back into a chair so hard it began to tilt back.

"Oh fuck!" I only had time to cry out before my back landed painfully on the ground. "Ouch...that actually does hurt a lot more then when I was in AUTO...ah, AUTO!" I scrambled to my feet and looked around. I was indeed back in my room, and it was dark now, I went over to my computer and checked it.

Sure enough, there was the clickable logo right in the top right corner of my screen.

"...Woah...I work for AUTO...and its an anime company." I couldn't help but giggle to myself.

"I've found my dream job!"

 **Wow, this took a while, huh? Sorry, I've been busy with studying picking up again, so I've had significantly less time to write.**

 **Now onto the matter of OC's. I've selected several acceptable ones, whose creators I will list here:**

 **Vaati Star**

 **WildFang14**

 **CTChronos**

 **ShinBP**

 **Shiranai Atsune**

 **pine swiftwings**

 **KorianneAnders**

 **dualitydisorders**

 **Assassinkai742**

 **MissAmeliaYoung**

 **Cloak192**

 **Cloudsomniac**

 **Pikapikaluv**

 **So, congratulations to you guys! To let you all know, this story will be constantly updating, so that I can keep your PM OC Forms at the top of my inbox so that I don't lose them! Also, this will show who's still reading or not, and whether I should drop some people! Yay!**

 **With this first update, just message me with your form, stating what Rank your OC is. C, B or A? And if so, give a reason...and whether or not they have access to Rank D.**

 **Thank you all so much for reading...if you still are! And, hopefully, I'll see you in the next chapter!**


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